CHAPTER III
“FURENS QUID
FŒMINA”
“The chariot has turned into the Flaminian Way,” said the urchin, running breathlessly back to his mistress. “Oh! so fast! so fast!” and he clapped his little black hands with the indescribable delight all children take in rapidity of movement.
“The Flaminian Way!” repeated Valeria. “He must go round by the Great Gate and the Triumphal Arches to get home. Myrrhina, if we make haste, we shall yet be in time.”
In less than ten minutes the two women had crossed the wide pleasure-grounds which skirted Valeria’s mansion, and had let themselves out by a pass-key into the street. So complete, however, was their transformation that the most intimate friend would have failed to recognise in these shrouded, hurrying figures, the fashionable Roman lady and her attendant. A wig of curling yellow hair covered Valeria’s nut-brown tresses, and the lower part of her face was concealed by a mask, whilst Myrrhina, closely-veiled and wrapped in a dark-coloured mantle, stained and threadbare with many a winter’s storm, looked like some honest child of poverty, bound on one of the humble errands of daily plebeian life. As they tripped rapidly along a narrow and little frequented street,—one of the many inconvenient thoroughfares which Nero’s great fire had spared, and which still intersected the magnificence of the Imperial City,—they had to pass a miserable-looking house, with a low shabby doorway, which was yet secured by strong fastenings of bolts and bars, as though its tenant had sufficient motives for affecting privacy and retirement. The women looked meaningly at each other while they approached it, for the dwelling of Petosiris the Egyptian was too well known to all who led a life of pleasure or intrigue in Rome. He it was who provided potions, love philtres, charms of every description, and whom the superstitious of all classes, no trifling majority, [pg 180]young and old, rich and poor, male and female, consulted in matters of interest and affection; the supplanting of a rival, the acquisition of a heart, and the removal of those who stood in the way either of a fortune or a conquest. It is needless to observe that the Egyptian’s wealth increased rapidly; and that humbler visitors had to turn from his door disappointed, day after day, waiting the leisure of the celebrated magician.
But if Valeria hurried breathlessly through the dirty and ill-conditioned street, she stopped transfixed when she reached its farthest extremity, and beheld the tribune’s chariot, standing empty in the shade, as though waiting for its master. The white horses beguiled their period of inaction in the heat, by stamping, snorting, and tossing their heads, while Automedon, now nodding drowsily, now staring vacantly about him, scarcely noticed the figures of the two women, so well were they disguised.
“What can he be doing there?” whispered Valeria anxiously; and Myrrhina replied in the same cautious tones, “If Placidus be trafficking for philtres with the Egyptian, take my word for it, madam, there will be less of love than murder in the draught!”
Then they hurried on faster than before, as if life and death hung upon the rapidity of their footsteps.
Far back, up a narrow staircase, in a dark and secluded chamber, sat Petosiris, surrounded by the implements of his art. Enormous as his wealth was supposed to be, he suffered no symptoms of it to appear, either in his dwelling or his apparel. The walls of his chamber were bare and weather-stained, totally devoid of ornament, save for a mystic figure traced here and there on their surface, while the floor was scorched, and the ceiling blackened, with the burning liquids that had fallen on the one, and the heavy aromatic vapours that clung about the other. The magician’s own robe, though once of costly materials, and surrounded with a broad border, on which cabalistic signs and numerals were worked in golden thread, now sadly frayed, was worn to the last degree of tenuity, and his linen head-dress, wound in a multiplicity of folds, till it rose into a peak some two feet high, was yellow with dirt and neglect. Under this grotesque covering peered forth a pair of shrewd black eyes, set in a grave emaciated face. They denoted cunning, audacity, and that restless vigilance which argued some deficiency or warping of the brain, a tendency, however remote, to insanity, from which, with all their mental powers, these impostors are seldom free. There was nothing else remarkable about the man. He had [pg 181]the deep yellow tint with the supple figure and peculiar nostril of the Egyptian, and when he rose in compliment to his visitor, his low stature afforded a quaint contrast to his trailing robes and real dignity of bearing.
The tribune—for he it was whose entrance disturbed the calculations on which the magician was engaged—accosted the latter with an air of abrupt and almost contemptuous familiarity. It was evident that Placidus was a good customer, one who bought largely while he paid freely; and Petosiris, throwing aside all assumption of mystery or preoccupation, laughed pleasantly as he returned the greeting. Yet was there something jarring in his laugh, something startling in his abrupt transition to the profoundest gravity; and though his small glittering eyes betrayed a schoolboy’s love of mischief, gleams shot from them at intervals which expressed a diabolical malice, and love of evil for evil’s sake.
“Despatch, my man of science!” said the tribune, scarcely noticing the obeisance and expressions of regard lavished on him by his host. “As usual I have little time to spare, and less inclination to enter into particulars. Give me what I want—you have it here in abundance—and let me begone out of this atmosphere, which is enough to stifle the lungs of an honest man!”
“My lord! my illustrious patron! my worthiest friend!” replied the other, with evident enjoyment of his customer’s impatience, “you have but to command, you know it well, and I obey. Have I not served you faithfully in all my dealings? Was not the horoscope right to a minute? Did not the charm protect from evil? and the love philtre ensure success? Have I ever failed, my noble employer? Speak, mighty tribune; thy slave listens to obey.”
“Words! words!” replied the other impatiently. “You know what I require. Produce it, there is the price!”
At the same time he threw a bag of gold on the floor, the weight of which inferred that secrecy must constitute no small portion of the bargain it was to purchase. Though he affected utter unconsciousness, the Egyptian’s eyes flashed at the welcome chink of the metal against the boards; none the more, however, would he abstain from tantalising the donor by assuming a misapprehension of his meaning.
“The hour,” said he, “is not propitious for casting a horoscope. Evil planets are in the ascendant, and the influence of the good genius is counteracted by antagonistic spells. Thus much I can tell you, noble tribune, they are of barbarian [pg 182]origin. Come again an hour later to-morrow, and I will do your bidding.”
“Fool!” exclaimed Placidus impatiently, at the same time raising his foot as though to spurn the magician like a dog. “Does a man give half a helmetful of gold for a few syllables of jargon scrawled on a bit of scorched parchment? You keep but one sort of wares that fetch a price like this. Let me have the strongest of them.”
Neither the gesture, nor the insult it implied, was lost on the Egyptian. Yet he preserved a calm and imperturbable demeanour, while he continued his irritating inquiries.
“A philtre, noble patron? A love philtre? They are indeed worth any amount of gold. Maid or matron, vestal virgin or Athenian courtesan, three drops of that clear tasteless fluid, and she is your own!”
The tribune’s evil smile was deepening round his mouth—it was not safe to jest with him any further; he stooped over the magician and whispered two words in his ear; the latter looked up with an expression in which curiosity, horror, and a perverted kind of admiration, were strangely blended. Then his eyes twinkled once more with the schoolboy’s mirth and malice, while he ransacked a massive ebony cabinet, and drew forth a tiny phial from its secret drawer. Wrapping this in a thin scroll, on which was written the word Cave (beware!) to denote the fatal nature of its contents, he hurried it into the tribune’s hands, hid away the bag of gold, and in a voice trembling with emotion, bade his visitor begone, an injunction which Placidus obeyed with his usual easy carelessness of demeanour, stepping daintily into his chariot, as though his errand had been of the most benevolent and harmless kind.
In the meantime, Valeria, accompanied by her attendant, had reached the tribune’s house, which she entered with a bold front indeed, but with shaking limbs. Despite her undaunted nature, all the fears and weaknesses of her sex were aroused by the task she had set herself to fulfil, and her woman’s instinct told her that, whatever might be her motives, the crossing of this notorious threshold was an act she would bitterly repent at some future time. Myrrhina entertained no such misgivings; she looked on the whole proceeding as an opportunity to display her own talents for intrigue, and make herself, if possible, more necessary than ever to the mistress with whose secrets she was so dangerously familiar.
In the outer hall were lounging a few slaves and freedmen, who welcomed the entrance of the two women with consider[pg 183]ably less respect than one of them at least was accustomed to consider her due. Damasippus, indeed, with a coarse jest, strove to snatch away the mask that concealed the lower part of Valeria’s face, but she released herself from his hold so energetically as to send him reeling back half a dozen paces, not a little discomfited by the unexpected strength of that shapely white arm. Then drawing herself to her full height, and throwing her disguise upon the floor, she confronted the astonished freedman in her own person, and bade him stand out of her way.
“I am Valeria!” said she, “and here by your master’s invitation, slave! for what are you better than a mere slave after all? If I were to hint at your insolence, he would have you tied to that doorpost, in despite of your citizenship, and scourged to death, like a disobedient hound. Pick up those things,” she added loftily, “and show me, some of you, to the private apartment of your lord. Myrrhina, you may remain outside, but within call.”
Completely cowed by her demeanour, and no whit relishing the tone in which she threatened him, Damasippus did as he was commanded; while a couple of slaves, who had remained till now in the background, ushered the visitor into another apartment, where they left her with many obsequious assurances that their lord was expected home every moment.
Every moment! Then there was no time to lose. How her heart beat, and what a strange instinct it was that made her feel she was in the vicinity of the man she loved! As yet she had formed no plan, she had made no determination, she only knew he was in danger, he was to die, and come what might, at any risk, at any sacrifice, her place was by his side. Imminent as was the peril, critical as was the moment, through all the tumult of her feelings, she was conscious of a vague wild happiness to be near him; and as she walked up and down the polished floor, counting its tesselated squares mechanically, in her strong mental excitement, she pressed both hands hard against her bosom, as though to keep the heart within from beating so fiercely, and to collect all its energies by sheer strength and force of will.
Thus pacing to and fro, running over in her mind every possible and impossible scheme for the discovery and release of the slave, whose very prison she had yet to search out, her quick ear caught the dull and distant clank of a chain. The sound reached her from an opposite direction to that of the principal entrance; and as all Roman houses were constructed on nearly the same plan, Valeria had no fear of losing her [pg 184]way among the roomy halls and long corridors of her admirer’s mansion. She held her breath as she hurried on, fortunately without meeting a human being, for the household slaves of both sexes had disposed themselves in shady nooks and corners to sleep away the sultriest hours of the day; nor did she stop till she reached a heavy crimson curtain, screening an inner court, paved and walled by slabs of white stone that refracted the sun’s rays with painful intensity. Here she stood still and listened, while her very lips grew white with emotion, then she drew the curtain, and looked into the court.
He had dragged himself as far as his chain would permit, to get the benefit of some two feet of shade close under the stifling wall. A water-jar, long since emptied, stood on the floor beside him, accompanied by a crust of black mouldy bread. A heavy iron collar, which defied alike strength and ingenuity, was round his throat, while the massive links that connected it with an iron staple let into the pavement would have held an elephant. It was obvious the prisoner could neither stand nor even sit upright without constraint; and the white skin of his neck and shoulders was already galled and blistered in his efforts to obtain relief by occasional change of posture. Without the key of the heavy padlock that fastened chain and collar, Vulcan himself could scarcely have released the Briton; and Valeria’s heart sank within her as she gazed helplessly round, and thought of what little avail were her own delicate fingers for such a task. There seemed no nearer prospect of help even now that she had reached him; and she clenched her hand with anger while she reflected how he must have suffered from heat, and thirst, and physical pain, besides the sense of his degradation and the certainty of his doom.
Nevertheless, extended there upon the hard glowing stones, Esca was sleeping as sound and peacefully as an infant. His head was pillowed on one massive arm, half hidden in the clustering yellow locks that showered across it, and his large shoulders rose and fell regularly with the measured breathing of a deep and dreamless slumber. She stole nearer softly, as afraid to wake him, and for a moment came upon Valeria’s face something of the deep and holy tenderness with which a mother looks upon a child. Yet light as was that dainty footstep it disturbed, without actually rousing, the watchful instincts of the sleeper. He stirred and turned his face upwards with a movement of impatience, while she, hanging over him and drinking in the beauty that [pg 185]had made such wild work with her tranquillity, as if her life had neither hope nor fear beyond the ecstasy of the moment, gazed on his fair features and his closed eyes, till she forgot time and place and hazard, the emergency of the occasion, and the errand on which she had herself come. Deeper and deeper sank into her being the dangerous influence of the hour and the situation. The summer sky above, the hot dreamy solitude around, and there, down at her feet—nay, so near, that, while she bent over him, his warm breath stirred the very hair upon her brow—the only face of man that had ever thrilled her heart, sleeping so calmly close to her own, and now made doubly dear by all it had suffered, all it was fated to undergo. Lower and lower, nearer and nearer, bent her dainty head to meet the slave’s; and as he stirred once more in his sleep, and a quiet smile stole over his unconscious countenance, her lips clung to his in one long, loving, and impassioned kiss.
CHAPTER IV
THE LOVING CUP
As he opened his dreamy eyes she started to her feet, for voices now broke in on the silence that had hitherto reigned throughout the household, and the tread of slaves bustling to and fro announced the return of their lord, a master who brooked no neglect, as well they knew, from those who were in his service. She had scarcely risen from her posture of soothing and devoted affection; scarcely had time to shake the long hair off her face, when Julius Placidus entered the court and stood before her with that inscrutable expression of countenance which most she hated, and which left her in complete ignorance as to whether or not he had been in time to witness the caresses she had lavished on the captive. And now Valeria vindicated the woman’s nature of which, with all her faults, she partook so largely. At this critical moment her courage and presence of mind rose with the occasion; and though, womanlike, she had recourse to dissimulation, that refuge of the weak, there was something on her brow that argued, if need were, she would not shrink from the last desperate resources of the strong. Turning to the tribune with the quiet dignity and the playful smile that she knew became her so well, she pointed to the recumbent figure of the Briton, and said gently—
“You gave him to me, and I am here to fetch him. Why is it that of late I value your lightest gift so much? Placidus, what must you think of me, to have come unbidden to your house?”
Then she cast down her eyes and drooped her stately head, as though ready to sink in an agony of love and shame. Deceiver, intriguer, as he had been ever since the down was on his chin, he was no match for her. He shot, indeed, one sharp inquisitive glance at Esca, but the slave’s bewildered gaze reassured him. The latter, worn out with trouble and privation, was only half awake, and almost [pg 187]imagined himself in a dream. Then the tribune’s looks softened as they rested on his mistress; and, although there was a gleam of malicious triumph on his brow, the hard unmeaning expression left his face, which brightened with more of kindness and cordiality than was its wont.
“It is no longer house of mine,” said he, “but of yours, beautiful Valeria! Here you are ever welcome, and here you will remain, will you not, with him who loves you better than all the world besides?”
Even while he spoke she had run over in her mind the exigencies and difficulties of her position. In that instant of time she could think of Esca’s danger—of the necessity that she should herself be present to save him from the fate with which, for some special reason that she was also determined to find out, he was obviously threatened—of the tribune’s infamous character, and her own fair fame; for Cornelia might not have left such a house as that with her reputation unscathed, and Valeria could far less afford to tamper with so fragile and shadowy a possession than the severe mother of the Gracchi. Yet her brow was unclouded, and there was nothing but frank good-humour in her tone while she replied—
“Nay, Placidus. You know that even we of the patrician order cannot do always as we would. Surely I have risked enough already; because—because I fancied you left me in anger, and I could not bear the thought even for an hour. I will but ask you for a cup of wine and begone. Myrrhina accompanied me here, and we can return, unknown and unsuspected, as we came.”
He wished nothing better. A cup of wine, a sumptuous feast spread on the moment, garlands of flowers, heavy perfumes loading the sultry air; soft music stealing on the senses gently as the faint breeze that whispered through the drowsy shade. All the voluptuous accessories so adapted to a pleading tongue and so dangerous to a willing ear. He had never known them fail; it should not be the fault of master or household if they proved useless now.
He took Valeria respectfully by the hand, and led her to the large banqueting-hall with as much deference as though she had been Cæsar’s wife. None knew better than the tribune how scrupulously all the honours of war must be paid to a fortress about to capitulate. As he bent before her, the phial he had purchased from Petosiris peeped forth in the bosom of his tunic, and her quick eye did not fail to detect it. In an instant she turned back as though [pg 188]stumbling on the skirt of her robe, and in the action made a rapid sign to Esca by raising her hand to her mouth, accompanied by a warning shake of the head and a glance from her eloquent eyes, that she trusted he would understand as forbidding him to taste either food or drink till her return. Once more, whilst she made this covert signal, the set and passionless look came over the tribune’s face. Cunning, cautious as she might think herself, his snake-like eye had seen enough. At that moment Placidus had resolved Esca should die within the hour. Then those two walked gracefully into the adjoining hall, and seated themselves at the banquet with a scrupulous courtesy and strict observance of the outward forms of good breeding; while the slaves who waited believed that the whole proceeding was but one of their lord’s usual affairs of gallantry, and that the noble pair before them loved each other well.
The tribune, like the rest of his sex, was no large eater when making love; and an appetite that could accompany Vitellius through the most elaborate banquets of the gluttonous Cæsar was satisfied with a handful of dates and a bunch or two of grapes in the presence of Valeria. She, too, in her anxiety and agitation, felt as if every morsel would choke her; but she pledged her host willingly in a goblet of red Falernian, with a vague idea that every moment she could keep his attention employed was of priceless value, clingingly almost hopelessly to the chance of obtaining by some means the possession of the fatal phial before it was too late.
He was in high spirits,—voluble, witty, eloquent, sarcastic, but devoted to her. In the moment, as he hoped, of his triumph he could afford to show, or rather to affect, more of delicacy and generosity than she had believed him to possess, and she loathed and hated him all the more. Once, when, after enunciating a sentiment of the warmest regard and attachment, she caught the expression of his eyes as they looked into her own, she glanced wildly round the room, and clenched her hand with rage to observe that the walls were bare of weapons. He was no stately, high-spirited Agamemnon, this supple intriguer, yet had there been sword, axe, or dagger within reach of that white arm, she would have asked nothing better than to enact the part of Clytemnestra. How she wished to be a man for the moment—ay, and a strong one! She felt she could have strangled him there, hateful and smiling on the couch! Oh! for Esca’s thews and sinews! Esca—so fair, and brave, [pg 189]and honest! Her brain swam when she thought of him chained, like a beast, within ten paces of her. An effort must be made to save him at any risk and at any sacrifice.
Placidus talked gaily on, broaching in turn those topics of luxury, dissipation, and even vice, which constituted the everyday life of the patrician order at Rome, and she forced herself to reply with an affected levity and indifference that nearly drove her mad. Cæsar’s banquets; Galeria’s yellow head-gear, and the bad taste in which her jewels were set, so inexcusable in an emperor’s wife; the war in Judæa; the last chariot race; and the rival merits of the Red and Green factions, were canvassed and dismissed with a light word and a happy jest. Such subjects inevitably led to a discussion on the arena and its combatants, the magnificence of the late exhibition, and the tribune’s own prowess in the deadly game. Placidus turned suddenly, as if recollecting himself, called for a slave, whispered an order in his ear, and bade him begone. The man hastened from the room, leaving lover and mistress once more alone.
The presence of mind and self-command on which she prided herself now completely deserted Valeria. In an agony of alarm for Esca, she jumped at once to the conclusion that his doom was gone forth. The tribune, turning to her with some choice phrase, half-jest, half-compliment, was startled to observe her face colourless to the very lips, while her large eyes shone with a fierce, unnatural light. Uttering a low stifled cry, like that of some wild animal in its death-pang, she fell at his feet, clasping him round the knees, and gasped out—
“Spare him! spare him! Placidus—beloved Placidus! spare him—for my sake!”
Her host, whose whole mind at that moment was occupied with thoughts very foreign to bloodshed, and whose whispered mandate had reference to nothing more deadly than orders for a strain of unexpected music, gazed in astonishment at the proud woman thus humbled before him to the dust. He had, indeed, intended to despatch Esca quietly by poison before nightfall, and so get rid at once of an inconvenient witness and a possible rival; but for the present he had dismissed the slave completely from his mind. If, an hour ago, he had allowed himself to harbour such a wild fancy, as that a mere barbarian should have captivated the woman on whom he had set his affections, her voluntary acceptance of his hospitality and her cordial demeanour since, had dispelled so foolish and unjust a suspicion, which he [pg 190]wondered he could have entertained even for a moment. Now, however, a chill seemed to curdle the blood about his heart. Very quietly he raised her from the floor; but, though he was not conscious of it, his grasp left a mark upon her wrist. Very distinct and steady were the tones in which he soothed her, asking courteously—
“Whom do you wish me to spare? What is it, Valeria? Surely you are not still dwelling on that barbarian slave? What is he, to come between you and me? It is too late—too late!”
“Never! never!” she gasped out, seizing his hand in both her own, and folding it to her breast. “It is no time now for concealment; no time for choice phrases, and mock reserve, and false shame! I love him, Placidus! I love him!—do you hear? Grant me but his life, and ask me for everything I have in return!”
She looked beautiful as she knelt before him once more, so dishevelled and disordered, with upturned face and streaming hair. It seemed to the tribune as though a knife had been driven home to his heart; but he collected all his energies for a revenge commensurate to the hurt, as he threw himself indolently on the couch, a worse man by a whole age of malice than he had risen from it a few seconds before.
“Why did you not tell me sooner?” said he, in accents of the calmest courtesy and self-command. “Fair Valeria! not more bargains are driven every day in the Forum than in the courts of Love! You offer liberal terms. It seems to me we have nothing left to do but to settle the remainder of the agreement.”
What a price was she paying for her interference! Not a woman in Rome could have felt more deeply the degradation she was accepting, the insult to which she was submitting; and through it all she was miserably conscious of a false move in the game she had the temerity to play against this formidable adversary. Still she had resolved that she would shrink from no humiliation to save Esca, and she blushed blood-red with anger and shame as she rose from her knees, hid her face in her hands, while she summoned her woman’s wit and her woman’s powers of endurance to help her in the emergency.
He, too, had bethought him of an appropriate revenge. The tribune never forgave; for such an offence as the present it was his nature to seek reprisals, exceeding, in their subtle cruelty, the injury they were to atone. There is no venom so deadly as a bad man’s love turned to gall. It would be [pg 191]fine sport, thought Placidus, to make her slay this yellow-haired darling of hers with her own hand. The triumph would be complete, when he had outwitted her at every point, and could sneer politely over the dead body of the man, and the passionate reproaches of the woman. The first step to so tempting a consummation was, of course, to put her off her guard, and for this it would be necessary to assume some natural displeasure and pique; too open a brow would surely arouse suspicions, so he spoke angrily, in the harsh excited tones of a generous man who has been wronged.
“I have been deceived,” said he, striking his hand against the board; “deceived, duped, scorned, and by you, Valeria, from whom I did not deserve it. Shame on the woman who could thus wring an honest heart for the mere triumph of her vanity! And yet,” he added, with an admirable appearance of wounded feeling in his lowered voice and relenting accents, “I can forgive, because I would not others should suffer as I do now. Yes, Valeria’s wishes are still laws to me; I will spare him for your sake, and you shall bear the news to him yourself. But he must be half dead ere this, of thirst and exhaustion; take him a cup of wine with your own fair hands, and tell him he will be a free man before sunset!”
While he spoke, he turned from her to a sideboard, on which stood a tall jar of Falernian, flanked by a pair of silver goblets. She had sunk from the couch beside him, and was resting her head upon the table; but she looked up quickly for a moment, and saw his back reflected in the burnished surface of a gold vase that stood before her. By the motion of his shoulders she was aware that he had taken something from his bosom while he filled the wine. The whole danger of the situation flashed upon her at once; she felt intuitively that one of the cups was poisoned; she could risk her life to find out which. Her tears were dried, her nerves were strung, as if by magic; like a different being she rose to her feet now, pale and beautiful, but perfectly calm and composed.
“You do love me, Placidus,” said she, raising one of the goblets from the salver on which they stood. “Such truth as yours might win any woman. I pledge you, to show that we are friends again at least, if nothing more!”
She was in the act of putting it to her lips, when he interposed, somewhat hurriedly, and with a voice not so steady as usual—
[pg 192]“One moment!” he exclaimed, taking it from her hand, and setting it down again in its place, “we have not made our terms yet; the treaty must be signed and sealed; a libation must be poured to the gods. It is a strong rough wine, that Falernian: I have some Coan here you would like better. You see I have not forgotten your tastes.”
He laughed nervously, and his lip twitched; she knew now that it was the right-hand goblet which held the poison. Both were equally full, and they stood close together on the salver.
“And this man could not slay me after all,” was the thought that for a moment softened her heart, and bade her acknowledge some shadow of compunction for her admirer. Bad as he was, she could not help reflecting that to her influence he owed the only real feeling his life had ever known, and it made her waver, but not for long. Soon the image of Esca, chained and prostrate, passed before her, and the remembrance of her odious bargain goaded her into the bitterest hatred once more.
She placed her hand in the tribune’s with the abandonment of a woman who really loves, she turned her eyes on his with the swimming glance of which she had not miscalculated the power.
“Forgive me,” she murmured. “I have never valued you, never known you till now. I was heartless, unfeeling, mad; but I have learned a lesson to-day that neither of us will ever forget. No, we will never quarrel again!”
He clasped her in his arms, he took her to his heart, his brain reeled, his senses failed him, that bewitching beauty seemed to pervade his being, to surround him with its fragrance like some intoxicating vapour; and whilst his frame thrilled, and his lips murmured out broken words of fondness, the white hand thrown so confidingly across his shoulder had shifted the position of the goblets, and the heart that beat so wildly against his own had doomed him remorselessly to die.
She extricated herself from his embrace, she put her hair back from her brow; love is blind, indeed, or it must have struck him that instead of blushing with conscious fondness, her cheek was as white and cold as marble, though she kept her eyes cast down as if they dared not meet his own.
“Pledge me,” said she, in a tone of the utmost softness, and forcing a playful smile that remained, carved as it were, in fixed lines round her mouth; “drink to me in token of [pg 193]forgiveness; it will be the sweetest draught I have ever tasted when your lips have kissed the cup.”
He reached his hand out gaily to the salver. Her heart stood still in the agony of her suspense, lest he should mark the change she had made so warily; but the goblets were exactly alike, and he seized the nearest without hesitation, and half-emptied it ere he set it down. Laughing, he was in the act of handing to her what remained, when his eye grew dull, his jaw dropped, and, stammering some broken syllables, he sank back senseless upon the couch.
She would have almost given Esca’s life now to undo the deed. But it was no time for repentance or indecision; keeping her eyes off the white vacant face, which yet seemed ever before her, she felt resolutely in the bosom of the tribune’s tunic for the precious key, and having found it, walked steadily to the door and listened. It was well she did so, for a slave’s step was heard rapidly approaching, and she had but time to return, on tiptoe, and take her place upon the couch ere the domestic entered; disposing of the tribune’s powerless head upon her lap as though he had sunk to sleep in her embrace. The slave discreetly retired, but short as was its duration, the torture of those few seconds was hardly inadequate to the guilt that had preceded them. Then she hurried through the well-known passages, and reached the court in which Esca was confined. Not a word of explanation, not a syllable of fondness escaped her lips as she calmly liberated the man for whom she had risked so much. Mechanically, and like a sleep-walker, she unlocked the collar round his neck, signing to him at the same time, for she seemed incapable of speech, to rise and follow her. He obeyed, scarce knowing what he did, astonished at the apparition of his deliverer, and almost scared by her ghastly looks and strange imperious gestures. Thus they threaded, without interruption, the passages of the house, and emerged from the private entrance into the now silent and deserted street. Then came the reaction; Valeria could bear up no longer, and trembling all over while she clung to Esca, but for whose arm she must have fallen, she burst into a passion of sobs upon his breast.
CHAPTER V
SURGIT AMARI
She had known but few moments of happiness, that proud unbending woman, in the course of her artificial life. Now, though remorse was gnawing at her heart, there was such a wild delight in the Briton’s presence, such ecstasy in the consciousness of having saved him, though at the price of a hateful crime, that the pleasure kept down and stifled the pain. It was a new sensation to cling to that stalwart form and acknowledge him for her lord whom others deemed a mere barbarian and a slave. It was intense joy to think that she had penetrated his noble character; that she had given him her love unasked, when such a gift could alone have saved him from destruction; and that she had grudged no price at which to ransom him for herself. It was the first time in Valeria’s whole existence that she had vindicated her woman’s birthright of merging her own existence in another’s, and for the moment this engrossing consciousness completely altered the whole character and training of the patrician lady. Myrrhina, walking discreetly some ten paces behind, could hardly believe in the identity of that drooping form, faltering in step, and timid in gesture, with her imperious and wilful mistress. This vigilant damsel, who was never flurried nor surprised, had effected her escape from the domestics of the tribune’s household, at the moment her practised ear caught the light footstep of Valeria making its way to the door; and although she scarcely expected to see the latter pacing home with the captive at her side, as oblivious of her waiting-maid’s existence, as of everything else in the world, she was quite satisfied to observe that this preoccupation was the result of interest in her companion. So long as an intrigue was on foot, it mattered little to Myrrhina who might be its originators or its victims.
[pg 195]They had not proceeded far before Esca stopped, waking up like a man from a dream.
“I owe you my life,” he said, in his calm voice and foreign accent, that made such music to her ear. “How shall I ever repay you, noble lady? I have nothing to give but the strength of my right arm, and of what service can such as I be to such as you?”
She blushed deeply, and cast down her eyes.
“We are not safe yet,” she answered. “We will talk of this when we get home.”
He looked before him down the stately street, with its majestic porticoes, its towering palaces, and its rows of lofty pillars, stretching on in grand perspective till they met the dusky crimson of the evening sky; and perhaps he was thinking of a free upland, and blue hills, and laughing sunshine glittering on the mere and trembling in the green wood far away at home, for he only answered by repeating her last word with a sigh, and adding: “There is none for me; a wanderer, an outcast, and a degraded man.”
She seemed to check the outburst that was rising to her lips, and she kept her eyes off his face, while she whispered—
“I have determined to save you. Do you not know that there is nothing you can ask me which I will not grant?”
He raised her hand to his lips, but the gesture partook more of the dependant’s homage than the lover’s rapture. She felt instinctively that it was a tribute of gratitude and loyalty, not an impassioned caress. For the second time, something seemed to warn her she had better have left that day’s work undone. Then she began to talk rapidly of the dangers they might undergo from pursuit, of the necessity for immediate flight to her house, and close concealment when there; wandering wildly on from one subject to another, and apparently but half-conscious of anything she said. At last he asked her eagerly, even sternly—
“And the tribune? What of him? How could you release me from his power? I tell you, I had the life of Placidus in my hand, as completely as if I had been standing over him in the amphitheatre with my foot on his neck. Would any price have purchased me from him, with all I knew?”
The crimson rose to her brow as she answered hurriedly, “No price! Believe me, no price that man could offer, or woman either! Esca, do not think worse of me than I deserve!”
“Then why am I here?” he continued, with a softened [pg 196]look; “I would like well to discover the secret by which Valeria can charm such a man as Placidus to her will.”
She was very pale now.
“The tribune will claim you no more,” said she; “I have settled that account for ever.”
He did not understand her, yet he dropped the hand he held and walked on a little farther from her side. She felt her punishment had already commenced, and when she spoke again it was in hard cold accents quite unlike her own.
“He crossed my path, Esca, and he met the fate of all who are rash enough to oppose Valeria. What motives of pity, or love, or honour, would avail with Placidus? When did he ever swerve a hair’s-breadth from his goal for any consideration but self? I knew him, ah! too well. There was but one invincible argument for the tribune, and I used it. I slew him—slew him there, upon his couch; but it was to save you!”
Perhaps he felt he was ungrateful. Perhaps he tried to think that he, at least, had no right to judge her harshly; that such devotion for his sake should have made him look with indulgent eye, even on so foul a crime as murder; but he could not control the repugnance and horror that now rose in him for this beautiful, reckless, and unscrupulous woman: but while he strove to conceal his feelings, and to mask them with an air of deference and gratitude, she knew by the instinct of love all that was passing in his breast, and suffered, as those only can suffer, who have thrown honour, virtue, conscience, everything to the winds, to purchase but the conviction that their shameful sacrifice has been in vain. She determined to put a period to the tortures she was enduring. Ere this, they had reached the street, from which opened the private entrance into her own grounds. Myrrhina, though within sight, still kept discreetly in the rear. This was the situation, this was the moment that Valeria had pictured to herself in many a rapturous day-dream, that seemed too impossibly happy ever to come to pass. To have ransomed him from some great danger at some equivalent price; to have led him off with her in triumph; those two pacing by themselves through the deserted streets at the witching sunset hour; to have brought him home her own, her very own, to this identical gate exactly in this manner; to have none between them, none to watch them, except faithful Myrrhina, and to see before her a long future of uninterrupted sunshine, this it had been ecstasy to dream of—and now it had come, and brought with it a dull sickening [pg 197]sensation that was worse than pain. She had a brave rebellious nature, in keeping with the haughty head and stately form hereditary in her line. No scion of that noble old house would shrink or quiver under mental, any more than under bodily, torture. Among the ancestral busts that graced her cornices, was that of one who endured with a calm set face to watch his own hand shrivelled up and crackling in the glowing coals. His descendants, male and female, partook of that unflinching character; and not Mutius Scævola himself, erect and stern before the Tuscan king, had more of the desperate tenacity which sets fate itself at defiance, than lurked under the soft white skin, and the ready smile, and the voluptuous beauty of proud Valeria.
She looked prouder and fairer than ever now, as she stopped at her own gate and confronted the Briton.
“You are safe,” she said, and what it cost her to say it none knew but herself. “You are free besides, and at liberty to go where you will.”
The rapture with which he kissed her hand while she spoke, the gleam of delight that lit up his whole face, the intense gratitude with which he bowed himself to the ground before her, smote like repeated strokes of a dagger to her heart. She continued in accents of well-acted indifference, though a less preoccupied observer might have marked the quivering eyelid and dilated nostril—
“You may have friends whom you long to see—friends who have been anxious about your safety. Though it seems,” she added, ironically, “they have taken but little pains to set you out of danger.”
Esca was always frank and honest; this was, perhaps, the charm that, combined with his yellow locks and broad shoulders, so endeared him to the Roman lady. She was unaccustomed to these qualities in the men she usually met.
“I have no friends,” he answered, rather sadly; “none in the whole of this great city, except perhaps yourself, noble lady, who care whether I am alive or dead. Yet I have one mission, for the power of performing which this very night I thank you far more than for saving my life. To-morrow, it would be too late.”
The tone was less that of a question than an assertion, in which she forced out the words—
“It concerns that dark-eyed girl! Esca, do not fear to tell me the truth.”
A faint red stole over the young man’s brow. They were [pg 198]standing together within the garden-wall on the smooth lawn that sloped towards the house. The black cedars cut clear and distinct against the pure serene opal of the fading sky. A star or two were dimly visible, and not a breath stirred the silent foliage of the holm-oaks, folded as it were in sleep, or the drooping flowers, drowsy with the very weight of fragrance they exhaled. It was the time and place for a confession of love. What a mockery it seemed to Valeria to stand there and watch his rising colour, and listen to the faltering voice in which he betrayed his secret!
“I must save her, noble lady,” said he; “I must save her this very night, whatever else be left undone. Be he dead or alive, she shall not enter the tribune’s house, whilst I can strike a blow or grasp an enemy by the throat. Lady, you have earned my eternal gratitude, my eternal service; give me but this one night, and I return to-morrow to be the humblest and most willing of your slaves for ever after.”
“And see her no more?” asked Valeria, with a choking throat and a strong tendency to burst into tears.
“And see her no more,” repeated Esca, sadly and resignedly.
There was no mistaking the tone of manly, unselfish, and utterly hopeless love. Valeria passed her hand across her face, and tried more than once to speak. At last she muttered in a hoarse hard voice—
“You love her then very dearly?”
He raised his head proudly, and a smile came on his lips, a light into his blue eyes. She remembered how he had looked so in the arena, when he gave his salute before the imperial chair. She remembered, too, a pair of dark eyes and a pale face that followed his every movement.
“So dearly,” was his answer, “that can I but rescue her I will gladly bargain to give her up and never even look on her again. How can I think of myself when the question is of her happiness and her safety?”
Valeria with all her faults was a woman. She had indeed dreamed of an affection such as this, an affection purified from the dross and alloy that combine to form so much of what men call love. She might not be capable of feeling it, but, womanlike, she could admire and appreciate the nobility of its aspirations, and the ideal standard to which it stretched. Womanlike, too, she was not to be outdone in generosity, and Esca’s proposal of returning to her household, and submitting to her will directly he had accomplished his errand, disarmed her completely. She was not accustomed [pg 199]to analyse her feelings, or to check the reckless impulse which always bade her act on the spur of the moment. She did not stop to consider to-morrow’s repentance, nor the grudging regrets which would goad her when the excitement of her self-denial had died out, and the blank that had hitherto rendered existence so dreary would be even less tolerable than before. If a shadowy misgiving that she would repent her concession hereafter passed for a moment across her mind, she hastened to repress it, ere it should warp her better intentions; and she could urge him to leave her now, with all the more importunity, that she dared not trust her heart to waver for an instant in the sacrifice.
“You are alone,” said she, calming herself with a great effort, and speaking very quick. “Alone in this great city, but you are loyal and brave. Such men are rare here and are worth a legion. Still, you must have gold in your bosom and steel at your belt, if you would succeed. You shall take both from me, and you will tell the dark-eyed girl that it was Valeria who saved her and you.”
His blue eyes turned upon her with looks of the deepest, the most fervent gratitude, and again the wild love surged up in her heart, and threatened to swamp every consideration but its own irresistible longing. His answer, however, sent it ebbing coldly back again.
“We shall be ever grateful; oh! that either of us could prove it! We shall not forget Valeria.”
Myrrhina thought her mistress had never looked so queenly, as when she called her up at this juncture, and bade her fetch a purse of gold from her own cabinet, and one of the swords that hung in the vestibule, and deliver them to Esca. Then, very erect and pale, Valeria walked towards the house, apparently insensible to his thanks and protestations, but turned round ere she had reached the threshold, and gave him her hand to kiss. Myrrhina returning from her errand, saw the face that was bent over him as he stooped in act of homage, and even that hollow-hearted girl was touched by its wild, tender, and mournful expression, but ere he could look up, it was cold and passionless as marble once more. Then she disappeared slowly through the porch, and Myrrhina with all her daring had not the courage to follow her into the privacy of her own chamber.